litigation

One of the nation’s leading legal advocacy groups for children recently embraced a new agenda, pledging to disrupt “institutional racism and its effects on the child welfare system.”

We’re counting down 10 of the biggest stories The Imprint published in 2019. Each day, we’ll connect readers with a few links to our coverage on a big story from this past year.

West Virginia, the third poorest state in the nation with the highest rate of foster care removals in the country, is handing children off to unsupported and unverified relatives and dooming hundreds to age out of foster care from institutions and group homes.

A nonprofit law firm representing a group of New York City foster youth has resumed long-running litigation against the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and the state agency that oversees it.

Bill Grimm, who has helped lead reform-prompting litigation against several state and county child welfare systems, has been awarded the Mark Hardin Award by the American Bar Association Center on Children and The Law.

While child welfare agencies are involved in litigation when children known to the system die, it is highly rare that criminal charges are leveled against the actual employees carrying out services in the community or in foster care.

In a pilot program meant to test privatization of child welfare services, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) has appointed a nonprofit organization to provide family-based safety services to families at risk of child abuse or neglect in six Texas counties, including El Paso.

The court-initiated overhaul of child welfare in Texas is underway; we will likely see a plan mapped out by the special masters in the case by early summer. Of specific concern is the system’s handling of the Permanent Managing Conservatorship (PMC) program of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). 

Los Angeles police arrested four child welfare caseworkers this month in connection with the death of an 8-year-old boy known to the system, thought it appears it will be June before they enter a plea of guilty or not guilty.